The FTSE 100 shot up at the open, jumping close to a percent before retracing some of its gains.
About an hour into trade, the blue-chip index was 53 points (0.62%) higher at 8,636. Barclays is the top riser, up 2.1%, with other lenders also rising, including HSBC and NatWest at 1.7% and 1.4%.
On the downside, Travis Perkins fell more than 10% after reporting a 99% decline in operating profit for last year, with a swing to losses at the reported level. That's as the FTSE 250-listed construction sector supplier cut prices and faced lower market volumes and underperformance in its builders merchanting segment.
In other news, UK shop prices fell again last month, according to data from the British Retail Consortium, with non-food inflation at -1.9% but food inflation of 2.4%.
Overall, the BRC's shop price inflation measure was down 0.4% in March, up from -0.7% in February.
And UK house price growth remained stable in March, with no month-on-month growth and with the market expected to lack oopmh in coming weeks due to the end of the stamp duty holiday.
